


The First of the Snowflakes to Fall

by ladyingold



Category: Darkthrone, Mayhem - Fandom, burzum - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Shame, fucking black metal man
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-30
Updated: 2017-05-21
Packaged: 2018-10-12 22:02:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 11,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10500336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyingold/pseuds/ladyingold
Summary: An interview with infamous Varg Vikernes uncovers the story of the mysterious girl featured on an alternate Darkthrone album cover.





	1. a very average interview in a very normal prison

**Author's Note:**

> all of the information in this fic is probably very wrong, but since only about four people are gonna read this, I figured that it’s gonna be ok, and along with that, acceptable for me to be creepy and write a fic about this lol. Anyway, thanks for reading if you do, and if this is bad leave me some criticism because this is just an exercise for me to try and write better!

Trondheim prison, Norway 2002

Mathilde closed her eyes and with a heavy breath exhaled smoke from her nose. She crushed her cigarette on the stone wall next to her and tossed it on the gravelly cement ground that framed the perimeter of the imposing, grey prison. Checking her watch she saw it to be 11:45am, and with a jump she quickly slipped on her navy blue pumps that were sitting on the ground next to where she was crouching and hobbled into the building, painfully aware of the blisters on her achilles begging to burst.

Upon entering the waiting room she saw Mr Kavins standing with an amused expression on his face by the entry door. “Only fifteen minutes late Ms Blom, enjoy your smoke break?” he spoke in broken english, assuming that Mathilde did not know Norwegian. She grimaced a smile and nodded, rearranging the folder stuffed with papers in her arms. “This way,” he said, sounding disappointed that there was no embarrassment or grovelling on her part. She followed him down a series of twisting corridors, along with a guard in a pastel blue uniform. All the way Kavins explaining prison guest protocol in excruciating detail.  
Whenever she tried to explain to the fat, bald man that she had in fact taken part in a prison interview before, having visited Bard Eithun of “Emperor” fame only a year prior with no serious issues, he waved her away and continued. Thank god for the relatively relaxed environment of Norwegian prisons, and the fact that the only people witnessing this interview would be the patrolling guards in the hallways outside of the conference room. When speaking, Kavins put emphasis on the word “Violent” and seemed to think that today’s interviewee, Varg Vikernes, was more suited to a sealed capsule in outer space than in the conditions he was accustomed to.

The pair arrived at an unmarked door with a glass panel in it, through the panel Mathilde could see Varg sitting at the plastic table painted to look like wood, next to a relaxed looking guard in a bland grey uniform. She took a deep breath, looked over to Kavins and nodded slightly, he opened the door for her and when she stepped in, closed it behind her. Mathilde was not aware that she would be practically alone with the man, whose eyes scanned her body. She hoped her attire, a black skirt and silky blue blouse, was what he was staring at, but she assumed not. His eyes travelled up to meet hers and he smiled, saying something in norwegian, too quick for her to understand.

He met her puzzled look with a roll of the eyes “So this interview will be conducted in English then?” he said as if she was stupid, or worse, American.

“We can do it in Swedish if you like?” she set her tape recorder down on the table and pressed record, the little wheels span in the machine.

“Ah, my Swedish is not so good.”

“Neither is my Norwegian, but that is neither here nor there and I’ve been given only thirty minutes with you so please let’s begin?”

“Sure.”

“My name is Mathilde Blom from Homicidal Magazine, can you tell me your full name and age please?”

“Legal name is, now, Varg Vikernes. Twenty nine.” he picked at his fingernail, “And you?”

“Twenty.” she crinkled her nose, not even Faust had asked her anything about herself, and he was one of the nicest band members she had spoken to, despite being in prison for murder. This was not the usual turn of events. “What we really wanted to speak of was, see, It’s coming up to be the ten-year-anniversary of the release of A Blaze in The Northern Sky by the band Darkthrone, you’re of course familiar?”

“Of course I’m familiar.” 

“Then you must also be familiar with the controversial alternative cover, yes?” Varg laughed in recognition.

“I had been waiting until some reporter came asking me about that.” when he was speaking Mathilde placed a shrink-wrapped vinyl of the rare cover art she had been speaking of. Aesthetically it was similar to the official cover, but was instead depicting a topless- corpse painted woman kneeling and half-faded into the shadows of the black cover. The band logo was in the top left hand corner. She pushed it towards him and he tore off the plastic and opened the record. “How much does this set you back these days?”

“About $550, paid for by Homicidal Magazine, thankfully.”

“And is this a gift?” Mathilde nodded, wanting to cut to the chase on why she was here for this interview. Varg slipped out a booklet from the pocket one one side of the cover and began to flip through it. He raised his eyebrows and smirked, almost unnoticeably. “It has been a long time since i have seen these pictures.” The pictures he was referring to were more shots of the model on the front cover, in various states of undress and in different positions. Mathilde could barely stand to look, resenting the unnecessary sexualised and morbid images of the unknown woman covered in bruises and even brandishing a scythe in some pictures. Although it may have been new at the time, the cover seemed a bit dated and reminiscent of the over sexualised themes of 80’s metal, and that was in fact one of the reasons that this was a discontinued cover, with only 100 in existence today. 

“So,” Mathilde started, “you do know the controversy surrounding this woman? Nobody will tell us about who she is.”

“Yes I have seen the witch hunts on the internet, people truly have no lives do they?”

Mathilde felt this as a personal attack but went on “Do you know who she is?”

Varg laughed “Yes, and I even remember her name if that is something for you?”

The journalist leaned in on her elbows, so interested she did not see them man making continual glances to her cleavage. She nodded with widening eyes.  
“Margot… Jacobsen I believe?”

The woman gasped “And who was she to you?”

“Another black metal slut, there was more than people would have you believe, especially during around 1992-93 when things were really taking off.” 

Mathilde was about to ask a question but was cut off by Varg, who leaned back in his chair “A reporter too, like you!” he smiled and Mathilde blushed back, she had not expected to react that way to this criminal’s smile, but was comforted by knowing that nothing could ever happen between them since he would be in prison for the next ten years.

“Who was she working for when these photos were taken?”

“She only ever worked for Slayer magazine. And for a long time too, but she was Metalion’s bitch for sure. Followed around Mayhem tour dates like a child follows their mother.”

“This is amazing, people have been trying to find out for a while who this woman is.”

“I don’t see why, she’s not that interesting, believe me I knew her.” He smiled again.


	2. underqualified

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A phone call, a train journey and a man with long dark hair

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls leave criticism if you can! im trying to improve, thx 4 readin

Sarpsborg, Norway 1989

Jon was pacing in the hallway, the red telephone cord stretched from the kitchen, through the living room and into where he was walking, endlessly chattering in a muttered voice too quiet for Margot to understand. The girl assumed he was discussing with somebody his upcoming piece on the band Mayhem. He was planning on travelling the hour-long train journey to Oslo in three days to attend a band rehearsal and hopefully a show. He was going alone, to the behest of Margot who would gladly give an organ to watch her favourite band perform live. 

She was on her knees in the living room, cutting and pasting chunks of text and images onto A4 pieces of printer paper to be put through the copier machines in two weeks.

When the phone outside was dropped, and subsequently flung a few metres through the air, the girl looked up with wide eyes as her “boss” entered the room. Jon, or “Metalion” as Margot never called him, was a huge man with long, curly hair who, although massive, was somehow the opposite of intimidating. So even when he was mad, which in this instance he definitely was, Margot had no fears of how he could react to things.

“What’s happened?” she asked concerned, putting down her scissors and shifting from her knees to sitting normally.

He didn’t look at her but spoke anyway “God fucking sister-in-law, fucking up my plans yet again.”

“Oh what did she do this time?” she asked, amused.

“Decided to get her ugly baby christened.” 

Margot cringed slightly in response. “Where?”

“Engalsvik,”

“It’s not that far, I’m sure you can still make to Oslo in time?”

As it turned out, he could not, as apparently the christians (at least the ones in Jon’s sister-in-law’s family) had turned a christening into some two-day-long affair involving food, celebrations and intense, suffocating, god-fearing prayer. 

Metalion, who was hesitant to let his friend and workmate do anything at all, let alone travel semi-long distances to meet a group of scummy band guys, was forced to make a decision. Let Margot go alone to do interviews, network and overall write the damn piece, or drop it altogether.   
This decision was made for him when the next day she was already packed and ready with a grin on her face that he wanted to smack right off.

“The train doesn’t leave for two days.” he deadpanned.

“Yes but it is better to pack days too early than to have to rush to pack late, correct?” she was so excited she was almost singing and she stopped from her glee to give Jon an exasperated look.   
She walked up and tried to encircle her weak, skinny arms around his hulking form to hug him. He sighed and swallowed her up in a bear hug that she giggled in. 

Their relationship, although close, was more like two close siblings than anything romantic. 

He pulled back and smiled at her, before pulling her back again and kissing her on the top of the head. They parted and she turned around to check her suitcase again, and her hair was up so he could see the bottom section of her hair shaved off, with the bathory band logo tattooed in its gothic style letters on her bare scalp. She had gotten it done one year ago, when she was fifteen and Jon had only known her for a short period of time. She was a homeless runaway, stupid and starving, crashing on the couches of unknown punkers and trying to follow death metal bands unsuccessfully. He had helped her, gave her a room to sleep in, and when he needed a break from the mundane tasks for the slayer zine, had her help him with the tasks he did not wish to do.   
He was fond of the girl, for sure, but her volatile tendency to sleep around and break down at the slightest hint of stress made him anxious about the upcoming days. He had only hoped that she would not destroy the reputation he had built for the zine.

She noticed him looking at her and she turned around “What are you looking at?” she teased.

“Your head, maybe put your hair down if you think you will be around any of the guys from Bathory, don’t want them to think of you as desperate?”

“Fuck off.”

Later that night Margot was on the phone in the kitchen, stirring a pot of ham soup. “So you want to come then, definitely?”

“Sure, as long as I get to go to the show. And I need to get away from Mikael anyway, just for a weekend.”   
Frida, Margot’s friend from school was trapped in a marriage too young with a man too overbearing, and Margot pitied her, so she would often call to catch up and invite her out places on the odd occasion that she would actually leave the house. Margot knew that if she did not run away all those years ago she would eventually be in the same place that Frida now was, so she was there to support her as much as she could. However she could not be complicit in her frequent cheating on her husband, even though he deserved it. 

Both of the girls were, and still to some extent are now, the metal groupies that the wives and girlfriends of rockstars were warned about.In their early teens they would hang around these men and sleep with them, only for the novelty that they were with someone famous. Since they were both still only young they had not begun to regret it yet.  
Margot was three years younger than Frida, but was emotionally the more mature one of the two.

“I’m excited, this is just what I needed.”

Two days later the girls, carrying their backpacks, boarded the train to Oslo in the early hours of the morning. The windows were clear and through them they could see the lush green flora of spring in Norway, the sunlight reflected off the leaves in a million different ways, and Margot could see her friend gaze with wonder at the beauty of mother nature that sat, unravelled before them. 

But still she longed for winter, the time that encapsulated in her mind the true beauty of Norway, and held a space in her heart. All of her most memorable thoughts of childhood were her and her brother Jonas playing in the snow outside the wooden cottage that belonged to their, now, long-dead grandmother. Before anything was difficult and before she grew up to feel dissatisfied with the lot she had been given, all she had was the pure joy that came when she saw the first of the snowflakes fall. 

Frida had long, unnatural blonde hair tucked into her long-sleeved green tee shirt. Her walkman headphones were pulled over her ears and Margot could hear the music leaking out from them. Boney M, for fucks sake, the girl was so cartoonishly anti-metal but continued to pretend to be interested in it. For the sake of Margot? Maybe, but she knew that it felt good to feel included in anything at all, and if she was in the position of Frida she would try to get involved in anything possible to get away from her wretched husband.

Having realised she had forgotten her walkman, which was near-useless anyway since it was about fourth-handed, down from her uncle to her father to her brother to her, and as old as walkmans have existed, she resigned to look out of the window and watch the landscape roll by. 

Soon enough they were at the station, and as the train came to a stop they saw the it was practically desolate. This was unusual for this time of year and time of day. 

Margot shook Frida awake and she awoke startled, jumping up. “Eh!” she whimpered slightly, and, understanding that it was time to get off, ran to the exit along with her friend.

They looked around the station for the man Metalion said was called Øystein. Sure enough, in the car park outside there was a short man with dark hair and his hands in his jacket pockets. When he caught sight of them he smiled and waved excitedly for a second, before composing himself and putting back on his face of ambivalence. 

Marot gave Frida a knowing look, but Frida just smirked back. Oh god she thought, not another trip like this. Frida seemed to know what she was thinking but only laughed in response to her friend’s frustration. 

They approached the man “Margot?” he asked, and she nodded, “Friend of Metalion right?”

Margot laughed and added “Best friends.”

Øystein smiled and turned his head “And you?”

“Frida.” she blushed and shook his hand. 

The three piled into Øystein’s car and drove off to some unknown location, and if they were a little less stupid, would have perhaps questioned the safety of staying for three days at a stranger's house. Or getting a ride from this stranger. Or being alone with this stranger for extended periods of time. But the girls thought none of that, all they were thinking of was the music.   
Well, all Margot was thinking about was the music. Frida was thinking more about the handsome man in the driver's’ seat swearing at innocent pedestrians from his broken car window, and what she could do to get him into bed with her. Margot knew this, and was disgusted, but knew that she could do nothing so did not bother.

They drove for a while, before coming up to a large plot of land with a brick house in the middle. The three of them waded through the long grass, all presumably grateful that they did not wear shorts.


	3. Raise the Dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mayhem rehearsal 1989, the beginning of a new era

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the read! dont forget to leave some criticism if you can

Oslo, 1989

A video camera was thrust into Margot’s hands by Øystein and she was unsure on how to use it. She fumbled with the controls slightly before finding a bright red button with an “aha!” and pressing down on it. She lifted the camera to her eye, and through it saw what she had not been able to see when first arriving to the house. 

She panned the camera around to all the people gathered around, all men apart from Frida, and was startled when Øystein grabbed the top of the video camera and pointed it towards himself. He introduced himself to the camera as “Euronymous” which took Margot by surprise. She had not seen him without the corpse paint. She almost could not believe that this short, baby-faced man could be the one who presented himself so menacingly. But she kept on filming as he gave her no instruction on what to do. 

Frida was a few metres away sitting on a log next to a blonde man, both smoking cigarettes and sitting in silence. She pointed her camera and smiled at her friend, Frida ignored her. 

After a few minutes of mindless chatter, none of which Margot was involved in, Øystein grabbed the camera from her hands and turned it off, muttering something about wasting all of his film. And with that Margot and Frida found themselves with nothing at all to do but to look at the scenery and chain smoke. The irony of taking in the beauty of nature while simultaneously destroying it with their pollution was completely lost on them.

Euronymous and a few other men had gone into a small garage next to the house, leaving the rest outside. Margot could see a boy, not a man, looking at her from a few metres away every now and then. He had hair similar to hers. Brown, and while his was shoulder length, hers went to about halfway down the back of her neck. He was skinny too, all of them were. Worryingly so.

After a few agonisingly slow minutes the group were invited into the garage, where the set up, although perhaps not too impressive objectively, blew the impressionable mind of Margot who had no experience with bands aside from trying to fuck the members. It was interesting seeing the other side of things. To be seen as an equal.  
Well perhaps not an equal, because when she had the orders barked at her by Øystein to being recording, and quickly, she felt like more of an assistant than a “journalist” who came to help them by providing them more exposure. She had not been introduced to anyone in the group at all yet, so she could only imagine how awkward Frida felt, all alone and without even a purpose on the trip. 

And finally a long note of feedback rang out, and the music started all at once, taking the girls by complete surprise. The frontman stood with his hair hung over his face, it couldn’t have been Maniac, she’s seen a picture of Maniac before and he looked way different to the man standing before her. He was blonde and malnourished but was somehow mustering the energy to belt out the most intense performance that she had ever seen. 

She looked over the the boy with brown hair, he was leaning against a wall and staring transfixed at the performance. She smiled at him, he was cute in a weird way. Frida was on the other side of her, grimacing and looking like it was taking all of her willpower to not cover her ears with her hands.

After filming for a good hour the camera was shut off and the guitars were put safely away. Margot had introduced herself to a few people, but mostly the guy that was sitting with Frida before, he said his name was Ivar and that he played bass for Darkthrone. Darkthrone was not a band she had particularly admired, or really knew anything about aside from their death metal sound, which she wasn’t particularly into as much anymore. Nevertheless she still gushed at how cool they were, and how Metalion played them in the apartment all the time. Margot didn’t know how much of a lie this was, Jon played a whole bunch of shit in that apartment, and it often blended together if you weren't paying attention. 

So she chatted with Ivar for a while, and he was a pretty cool guy, very into the music he was making, and you could tell from the way the rehearsal today had seemed to impact him. It seemed like Mayhem truly was the start of something new and interesting.

They talked for so long that they didn’t realise that everyone had left, they heard Øystein honking the horn of his small, shitty car and yelling for them to move it. They both jumped and together tried to quickly wade through the tall grass yet   
again.

When they arrived Øystein’s car was full up of his bandmates and Frida, who waved guiltily from the passenger’s side window before a smirk grew on her face. A car full of sweaty, disgusting metalheads, what a dream for a girl like her.

Margot looked at Ivar worriedly but he just laughed and squinted in the sun “It’s alright, we’re going to the same place, get in my car.”  
A few more metres down the road there was an even shittier car parked there, from the look of it she was surprised the wheels weren’t missing. The boy with shoulder-length brown hair from before was sitting alone in the passenger seat looking out the window and out to the house that Mayhem had just practised in. He watched as the two of them got in. There were no seatbelts in the backseat, so Margot hoped to god that Ivar was a good driver. When he turned on the engine she shifted forward in her seat and poked her head out of the gap between the two front seats.

“I didn’t catch your name before?” Margot asked the boy “I’m-”

“Margot, I know. Aarseth has been talking about you for a few days. I’m Gylve.”

“What has he been saying?” she said.

“Just bullshit, you know Øystein.”

“I really don’t.”

“Well, he’s a good guy deep down, he just seems to need to impress people a lot.” Gylve took a cigarette out of the breast pocket of his black denim jacked and turned back to look at her “You got a light?” 

Margot fumbled in her pocket for the orange bic lighter she carried with her and placed it in his open palm. Her fingertips grazed his calloused skin for a half a second and the corners of his mouth turned up, though he was not looking at her. They had seemed to forget that Ivar was there. 

Ivar, who had been silently teasing Fenriz with his eyes all day about how he couldn’t stop looking at the girl who was, to be brutally honest, not the best looking, had his eyes firmly held on the road, not making a sound. As a good friend, he vowed not to ruin his friend’s very slim chances of getting with this journalist girl. Although she was pretty cool in his eyes, Fenriz was prone to fucking up with girls pretty majorly due to his sometimes immature behaviour.

The rest of the car ride went by in silence, until they approached a semi run-down block of apartment buildings, Margot gulped. “Uh where are we supposed to be going?” she said as they got out of the car, she fidgeted, nervous about being in a stranger's flat.

“Just the bar we go to, this is Ted’s parent’s flat.”

“Who’s Ted?”

“I’m Ted,” said a voice coming from behind Margot, she spun around to see a blonde boy leaning against a the brick wall in front of the building smoking a cigarette “Gylve stop taking my fucking keys, I’ve been locked out for an hour.” Gylve grinned impishly and tossed a ring of keys into his friend’s hand. Ted just gave him a stern look and began up the front steps of the building.  
Ivar and Gylve followed him but Margot just watched them walk ahead. When they looked back at her in expectation for her to follow, then she knew that she was not going to be abandoned by them any time soon.


	4. into the fire

Gothenberg, Sweden 2002

“So do these long distance calls set the prison back much?” Mathilde smiled into the receiver of her cherry red telephone, twisting the spiral cord around her finger. 

“Oh, I wouldn’t think so, and if it did I wouldn’t get billed for it. Everything comes free here, seems kind of oxymoronic for it so be a prison since it’s so nice.”

Mathilde laughed nervously, she herself had been in that same prison, and knew for a fact that it wasn’t really very nice at all. How long had Varg been locked away that he can’t remember normalcy? Or maybe the man had never truly encountered normalcy in the first place. She felt bad for him, so isolated, even getting his computer taken away from him, which further cut him off from the outside world. Every now and then a voice would appear in the girl’s head saying ‘He killed someone Mathilde, he’s an evil man, you have a boyfriend”. This was her voice of reason apparently, that she was for the first time in her life choosing to ignore. She had spent the last ten years being perfect, doing everything right to impress everyone else, and now she wanted to be impulsive. 

They would talk for so long that the girl would often drag a kitchen chair into the hallway where the house phone was rigged so she could relax to speak, without having to stand for hours. Varg would stand in the phone bay of the prison during his allocated hours and fend off anyone waiting in line to use the phone with a menacing glare.

The pair of them were talking about a book they had both read at 10pm one night when Mathilde’s boyfriend Julian came out of their shared bedroom shirtless and tired, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand and heading to the kitchen. She eyed him guiltily, but kept on listening to Varg speak.

Varg begged her to write to him, saying that the only letters he got anymore were ones from obsessed fans or people wanting to do an interview for their shitty zine. When Mathilde pointed out that she did the same, he told her that she was different. She couldn’t see how. Nevertheless she wrote anyway, and their correspondence became the only thing that either of them looked forward to in their lives.

When Mathilde hung up the phone at about 10:30 she turned around to see Julian standing behind her. “How long until the interview is published?” he asked with his arms crossed in front of him.

She feigned ignorance “which interview?”

“Don’t act stupid around me, I know what’s going on.”

“Oh so you know that i'm corresponding with a musician for a magazine article? Like I always do?”

“Oh so you always spend weeks after the meeting sending letters and exchanging hours-long telephone calls about J.R.R. Tolkein novels Matty? You always send them pictures of yourself in your fucking letters?”

“Who gave you the right to read my mail?” She cried out and stormed into the bedroom to see a ripped open letter that was to be send to Trondheim the next day, with two photos ripped in half and scattered on the bed. She picked them up and threw them in the bin in the corner of the room, and then turned to see his hulking form in the doorway. 

“First you become friends with that Elias guy, then you feel the need to go out all the time, to fucking Norway of all places. You’re lucky I let you leave the house, bitch.” She flinched at his harsh words, “None of this would have happened if you weren't so stubborn, and you just dropped out like I’ve been telling you to for months.” on every word the volume got higher and higher.

“I’m leaving,” he said “I read what he’s fucking written to you and I’m done. You are worth nothing to me anymore.” 

And with a swift packing of suitcases and an hour of deafening, suffocating silence, a chapter of Mathilde’s life was over. The worst part was that it was her own fault. She spent the early hours of the morning in a state somewhere between awake and sleep, tossing and turning until her sheets were pulled off and the pillows were thrown across the room.

She never thought he would be the one to dump her. She had always imagined her escape from him to be difficult and she would be triumphantly burning his possessions with her girlfriends in celebratory fashion afterwards, over drinks and loud laughter. But all her friends were long gone and all he had left of his in the flat was a pair of running shorts crumpled in the corner of the laundry. 

When the clock hit 4:45 Mathilde searched through the bottom cupboards until she found a bottle of the cheap vodka that Julian used to buy. She took a swig and grimaced, tears forming in the corners of her eyes. It tasted like nail polish remover. 

She grabbed the gym shorts and a box of matches with one hand, still holding the bottle with the other, and climbed the stairs leading to the roof of her block of flats. The air was cold, and she was thankful for the blanket around her shoulders. She threw the shorts on the cement ground and splashed vodka on them, before throwing a match on them. They went up in flames instantly. 

When it started to get out of control and smell too strongly, Mathilde hurriedly threw her blanket over the fire suffocating the flames. 

The next day on the phone she briefly described to Varg what had happened, and he expressed disbelief in even knowing she had a boyfriend. After the initial feelings of betrayal emanating from him subsided, she had asked him to tell her more about the girl on the Darkthrone album cover. He sighed and began to speak.


	5. The small hours

The “Rock and Roll Cafe” was full of the unsavoury characters you would expect to see in that sort of establishment. Margot turned from staring down the neck of her bottle to looking at the man on the small stage playing the saxophone. This was not that type of music that she was into at all, but she respected the man, with his long grey beard and round blue glasses. He didn’t leave when Euronymous jeered at him or when people disrespectfully yelled over his playing.

The more the people in the bar disrespected him the more Margot grew intrigued into the music. It was clear and sharp, loud too, with no amps necessary. During the breaks of his sax solos he was singing mournfully about the loss of his one and only love.

The girl rested her chin in her hand and faced entirely away from the massive group she sat with, completely enthralled in the man’s performance. Until she was distracted by the hands of Ted moving up and down her arms from behind her. 

“You warm?” he asked, only because she had been offered one of his flannels to wear out since it was so cold at night. 

“Yeah,” she smiled at him, turning to face him. Frida was at the other end of the table sitting on Øystein’s lap, which was a sort of funny sight as he was a short little thing, and Frida was lanky and model-proportioned. Margot was definitely jealous of her friend for how she looked, and it became sort of painful to be the more boring one in the friendship. Frida was 5’10 and amazingly proportioned, with long blonde hair. She had glistening white and straight teeth thanks to years of expensive orthodontic work, and her parents’ money came in handy when it came to the upkeep of her hair and skin. They gave her this money because they believed that her dream of becoming a model was reasonable. Margot believed that it was an excuse to not work at all, but still claim to be working hard for modelling gigs.  
Margot sighed and looked at her friend, unable to shake the feeling of unease at watching her friend cheat on her husband. Sure, Mikael was an abusive piece of shit, but Frida could definitely be handling the situation way better than she was. 

Margot looked at herself in the reflection of her brown beer bottle. Her face was contorted by the shape of the glass, but she could see the spots of acne around her nose and chin. Where Frida was tall, Margot was short. And where Frida had long silky blonde hair, Margot’s was chopped short and brown with an undercut. The endless comparisons did not do well for her self esteem, and this added to the fact that Margot had not lost the baby fat around her face yet, made her not the most confident of people,

Ted had his arm around the narrow shoulders of Margot and was massaging circles into her upper arm a little more forcefully than necessary. From across the table, unbeknownst to her, Fenriz was boring angry holes into the display of affection with his eyes. 

The large group, made up of the entire Mayhem band, Frida, Margot, Gylve, Ted, Ivar, and a few others Margot had not been introduced to, were eventually kicked out of the bar and onto the cold Oslo streets. It was only midnight and for a few people, namely Øystein, the night was nowhere near over. He was whispering into Frida’s ear and she was giggling at him, but once again it was a strange sight because of the fact that she had to bend her knees slightly to be able for him to reach her ear comfortably.

After a few minutes of aimless walking Frida shouted out to Margot “Margie! Are you coming back to Euro’s?” Øystein raised his eyebrows at the nickname he had been given but did not protest as the girl was drunk as anything and likely not to remember the embarrassing name tomorrow. 

Ted’s arm was still firmly around Margot and he answered for her “No she’s coming back to mine.” He said and grinned at the guitarist who gave him a knowing look back.

“Well fine but you MUST be at Euro’s before at least 3 ok Margie?” Frida was only standing up with the help of Øystein’s arms she was so drunk, but she remembered the time they had to leave for the show venue the next day which was helpful. She gave Margot a shoddily drawn map of the area, showing where Euronymous’ block of flats was. She looked at it worriedly, but figured that she would worry about the journey there when the time came.

“Ok Frida, be safe!” she yelled after her friend as she was swallowed up by the mass of people turning down an alleyway, presumably towards Øystein’s apartment. Eventually her and Ted were all alone and walking silently along a main road. She recognised the street as the one she had been on earlier and when Ted took his keys out of his pocket Margot joked “Gylve didn’t steal them this time aye?”. Ted just smiled but didn’t respond, and when Margot tried to talk he silenced her.

“Mum’s asleep.” he said and Margot suddenly became very nervous and tread as quietly as possible in her squeaky sneakers. They went up to Ted’s room and he closed the door behind them. Before the door even clicked shut his fingers were already woven into her short brown hair and his mouth was pressed to hers, hard. Her back was pressed flat against the door and she was so shocked that she could not process that she was supposed to kiss back. 

He pulled back “Are you okay?” she answered by pulling off her shirt and linking herself together with him again. He laughed at her, in a callous way that Margot didn’t note until the next day when she thought back on the encounter.

A band Margot didn’t recognise was playing low through Ted’s speakers after he had left her for a second, standing on her own in the corner of the room shirtless. He sat down on his bed and pulled off his boots. “Come here, why are you standing over there for?”  
She had not gone over to him because her buzz was wearing off and she realised she was about to fuck a stranger. Well not really a stranger, he was a friend of Jon’s apparently and she had heard him play on some Darkthrone records. They had spent the last few hours together, where he mentioned he was taking over on vocals for his band, and Fenriz was now relegated to drums. 

Margot sat down next to Ted and slipped off her sneakers, before turning to him and kissing him. They laid down and he hovered above her, without breaking the kiss reaching down to unbutton his trousers.

The next day Margot woke up with a layer of sweat covering her body, tucked under the arm of Ted who was laid out like a starfish over his double bed. The sheets were half slipped off the mattress. Ted was out cold, and practically immovable, as evident when the girl could hardly lift his arm to free herself from her sweaty captivity. The room was god awfully messy, with not only clothes but also empty bottles and food packets littering the carpet. She tiptoed naked over the debris, trying to pick out her own tee-shirt and blue jeans out of the piles. 

Once dressed she shoved Ted trying to wake him up. He groaned and swatted at her. “Come on you have to wake up it’s-” She looked at the clock “3:15!” she yelled a little louder. Fifteen minutes late and who knows how long it would take to reach Øystein’s. 

“I’m not even going.” he mumbled, before turning over and falling back asleep.

“So I just have to find my own way back then?” She said expectantly. He didn’t respond and Margot groaned, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes until she saw sparks in the dark vision. “Fuck.” 

She walked down the hallway of the unknown flat to see a woman in the kitchen who looked about 40, scrubbing at a stained cabinet. Margot stopped and the woman looked at her expressionless for a second, before going back to her work. She walked fast to leave and was welcomed by the crisp air of spring, before being crushed that she was alone in an unfamiliar location.


	6. A Fine Day to Die

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pls review hope u like it

It took Margot about 45 minutes of wandering to find the guitarist’s flat, and it was just as run-down and depressing as he wished he was. The paint on the stairs up to the doorway was lifting and cracking, and dust looked as if it had been accumulating for years. Only when she came to the doorstep did the girl realise that it was 4pm, and the whole group had almost definitely gone. Nevertheless she knocked on the door anyway, not expecting an answer.

A tired-looking Gylve answered the door and let her in, eyeing her messed up makeup and greasy hair suspiciously. “Why did you not go to the show?” She asked him. She was sitting at the small round dining table and watching him grab something out of the fridge.

“Stayed to wait for you.” he said, he grabbed a beer and sat down across from her. It was awkward, they were alone and barely knew each other.

“So, are we gonna go to the Mayhem gig or not?” She asked and Gylve took a sip of his drink. He sighed.

“I can’t drive, and I’m broke.” 

Margot’s head was in her hands, the reason she was even in fucking Oslo was to see this one gig. Jon would be upset if she didn’t get at least some pictures of the show and and interview from Øystein, or maybe Pelle if he could bring himself to say one word to her, because he sure couldn’t the day before. “Fuck” she said to herself, before snapping her head up “Is my bag in here?” 

“It’s in the first room down the hall.” Gylve rubbed his face tiredly, and with that the girl got up quickly to find her stuff. The room was tiny, with one double bed. Frida’s bag was in there too, but not unpacked and the bed was perfectly made. Margot was correct in thinking that her friend would not be sleeping in her own bed that night, but who was she to judge.

She slung the handle of the bag over her shoulder and opened every door in the hallway trying to find the bathroom. When she found it it was nicer than expected, minimal mold and a hot water system that seemed to work fine. She undressed, hopped in, turned on the taps, and sighed as she felt the water run through her hair, jets of liquid massaging like warm fingertips. The water went cold after about a minute and Margot was left standing as far away from the shower stream as possible, scrubbing her body hard and the quickly rinsing off the suds before jumping out of the way again. 

The springtime was still cold in Oslo, but in a way that was more comforting than the hostile winter climates. Margot stepped out of the shower with clean hair and aching bones, threw on some pajama shorts and a big shirt and wandered further into the unknown house. Gylve was nowhere to be seen, and when she registered this she had an epiphany.

“Gylve!” she yelled as loud as she could muster. When there was no response she yelled again, louder this time, until the boy ran skidding into the living room where she stood.

“What? What?” he said, worried.

Margot’s eyes were shining with a mixture of excitement and nervousness, “Um…” she questioned herself for a minute, “Is it okay if I take some pictures of you in this flat, and-uh ask you some questions about Darkthrone?” She was wringing her hands anxiously. 

His face dropped, “Well, Ted’s not here so…” Margot flinched slightly at the mention of the blonde boy, and Gylve picked up on it. “But I suppose you wouldn’t want to see him after last night.”

She pursed her lips, “I didn’t sleep with him.” She lied “And I don’t have to answer to you anyway! Just tell me if i can interview you or not, I’ll stay out of your way if you want me to.”

“No! It’s ok.” He smiled dejectedly with half his mouth and put his hands in his pockets. Margot grinned and held herself back from throwing a fist in the air. ‘Maybe this time’ she thought to herself ‘I won’t completely let Jon down’.

He watched her as she walked into Øystein’s guest bedroom, and then emerge with a huge derelict-looking camera and a dictaphone. He thought about how an hour ago he felt himself lucky that he got to stay the night alone at the flat with just Margot, as everyone knew clearly that he had some heavy, badly considered feelings for her. It could be that she was as a amazing as he thought she was, or she was just the first girl he had seen in a while who wasn’t some druggie goth succubus, or preppy eurovision fan. He cursed himself for his elitism, but he couldn’t help the fact, it was a part of the scene. Unfortunately the night was looking to be quite bleak, as she was set on taking pictures of him in this derelict flat just so she apparently wouldn’t get fired from her job. Her being a “journalist” was definitely a flaw on her, but at least she wasn't a paparazzi or a tabloid writer.

He ran his hand through his hair and went into the kitchen to get another beer. To his surprise, Margot followed him and grabbed one too without asking. He didn’t say anything because they weren’t his either, they were Jan’s but he had forgotten to take them to the gig, so in his mind they were fair game. 

She cracked the top of the can and took a sip, crinkling her nose as she did it. “I don’t know how you can drink that.” she said, setting the beer down on the table. He picked it up and with three gulps it was completely gone. 

“Are you trying to impress me Gylve?” 

“Not really, I’ll need to be drunk for this- right?”

“If that helps you.” she said absentmindedly. She crouched in front of the fridge and stuck her head inside, noting the faint smell of off tomatoes and the uncovered foods wasting away in the very back. When she saw it was dry of alcohol she span around, closing the refrigerator door and moved to a cupboard. In the very back was a half empty bottle of vodka that looked to be as old as the flat was, and as it was accumulating dust, Margot figured it was a waste to not drink it.

They walked into the living room and Margot sat down on the carpet in front of the small tv that was sitting on a low shelf. There were video tapes scattered on top of the VHS player and she picked one up and inspected the cover.

“The Last Orgy of the Third Reich,” she read aloud “Yours?”

“Hey don’t blame me for that, I don’t even own a video player.” He laughed and sat with her on the dirty carpet. She took a swig of the clear liquid and squeezed here eyelids together tightly.

“Tastes like disinfectant.” She choked out and he laughed at her, snatching the bottle from her hand and tasting it himself. It wasn’t as bad as she had said, but wasn’t the most high quality stuff around. Which was probably the reason it had been rotting in a cupboard for years. Margot laughed loudly at the face he had made while drinking it, a face of disgust and sad resignation.

She quickly became serious when she took her dictaphone off the floor and clicked record. “Hello I am Margot Jacobssen from the Slayer zine, I am talking to Gylve,” She said in a voice weirdly different from her speaking voice, more serious. “From the band Darkthrone.”

“Hi.” He said curtly, leaning towards the small mic.

“So,” she started, smiling at him slightly and looking at him in the eyes. He leaned forward slightly, drawn in by her almost magnetically. She took a long gulp of the ancient vodka and started “Um, so, give me an overview of the-uh roles in your band? Like who plays the instruments and shit?”

All of Gylve’s preconceived notions of Margot being some sort of evil journalist were thrown out the window at the uttering of possibly the shittest question asked in an interview ever. He laughed and rubbed his face with his hands. “I’m on drums. Now, anyway. I was vocalist but then since we are getting more serious… we need a more serious vocalist.” 

“Oh shut up I’m sure you were good.”

“I’m okay, not what was best for the sound though- you know?” Margot nodded, and he continued “So Ivar is on bass, you know Ivar?”

“Yeah he was at the rehearsal yesterday.”

“He’s a good guy, good bassist. Ted on vocals, he’s only just joined about a year ago.”

After a few questions Margot grew bored and lied down on the carpet, switching off her dictaphone and closing her eyes. “What time is it Gyve?” she whined at him. By now she was well and truly drunk, and a lightweight on top of that.

“9:30” he said, sitting up on the couch and putting on a video from Øystein’s collection. He passed her the cover of the video, knowing that she would be asking what film it was in a few seconds.

“Cannibal holocaust,” She said “Bit of a mood killer… Wait!” She jumped up quickly and stumbled “I’m supposed to be taking photos of you for the zine!”

“God you’re drunk,” Gylve laughed at her “Maybe you don’t want to mess with the camera right now, might break it .”

“Don’t be silly” She grabbed it and raised it to her eye “Look menacing,”

“No.” He refused to stand up from the brown leather couch to meet her demands, so she just snapped a picture of him sitting there with an embarrassed smile on his face. “How are you gonna use that? Does it really fit the image of Slayer?”

“I think it does.” She couldn’t stop giggling, which was problematic because she kept stumbling over her own feet, and she was holding an expensive (yet old) piece of equipment. “Bunch of depressed metal guys sitting down, being alcoholics,” she laughed at her bad joke, but was shaken out of her reverie by the shrill sound of the phone ringing.

“You get it.” said Gylve, cracking the lid of another beer and taking a large gulp. The pile of cans at his feet was getting larger and larger and Margot was endlessly amused with him.

“Hello? Margot speaking.” She said into the receiver with all the drunk charm she could muster. She was sobered immediately though when she heard the unmistakable sobbing of her best friend. “Frida?” She said in a panicked voice “Frida what’s wrong?”

“It’s Mikael!” She managed to force out “He found out where I am, he showed up to the gig.” She collapsed into a fit of gasps, trying to intake air while also violently cry at once.

“Frida what happened, you need to tell me what happened.”

“He just saw me, he didn’t do anything Margie he just saw me and he looked so angry. He knows everything from Jon, he showed up to your flat and talked to him.”

“Fuck!” Margot cried, Jon was such an idiot sometimes, she preyed that he didn’t give away Øystein’s address along with the location of the Mayhem show.

“He’s coming after you Margie, I’m so sorry I dragged you into this.” The line went dead, and Margot stared at the phone in her hands before looking up and meeting the eyes of Gylve, who was hovering next to her. 

“We need to hide.”


	7. Curse the Flesh

Oslo 1989

They were both sitting in the bathtub, behind a shower curtain, behind a locked bathroom door, through a long corridor, a living room, and a heavy wooden front door with two locks. They still felt wholly unsafe, and every time each of them lifted their shared cigarette to their lips, they did so with a shaky hand. 

They waited for about twenty-five minutes, and after that period of time, Gylve was weighed down with his own disappointment in himself. ‘What cowardice’ he thought, but did not share ‘That instead of protecting this girl from her attacker I’m hiding along with her’. So he stood up on skinny, jelly legs and walked out of the bathtub.

“Gylve!” Margot whispered “What are you doing? Please don’t leave me alone.”

“Stay there Margie and lock the door after me.” He turned back to her with a small smile, she didn’t return it, too flustered by the fact that he used that very personal nickname for her. As soon as he left the room she tried to get up but could not find the strength. Instead she only sat there bracing herself, trying to control her scared breaths.

Gylve knew that Øystein kept his weapons somewhere, but he walked into the living room first to check that the door was bolted. It was not, in fact the door was swung wide open and he could seen the lights from the neighbouring apartments windows on, and people peering out of them into the doorway. There was an unfamiliar car on the curb in front of the flat. “Oh shit.” He muttered, before sprinting with all he could to the bathroom. That door was open too, and he heard screaming coming from Øystein’s bedroom.

“Fuck! Margot!” He yelled out to her, running down the hallway, the carpet was decorated with small spots of wet blood. He had looked to have dragged her from the bathroom to the end of the hall, where he had slammed her head into a bedpost and she’d been knocked unconscious, at least for a while until she was woken by heavy fists to the face. The whole thing seemed to have happened in an instant.

Mikael, who was huge and blonde, was hovering above Margot delivering blow after blow to her head and chest. She couldn’t move except to aimlessly kick out for him, but her skinny legs were stopped by just one of his hands. Her mouth was spitting blood onto the eggshell carpet.

The attacker hadn’t heard him run in, too focused on his task of traumatising the girl. With every blow he grunted loudly, and Margot let out a whimper. Running on adrenaline Gylve opened Øystein’s closet and found a black crowbar the length of his arm sitting amongst the discarded clothing and rubbish. 

He took it in one hand and administered a cracking blow to Mikael’s back, and when the man turned around to see who was attacking him, Gylve took two steps backwards in terror. He jumped up and with one long stride and a swift movement of the arm wrenched the crowbar out of the boy’s hand and threw it into the wall, where it left a hole in the plaster. 

Mikael looked back for a split second to see that his victim was completely incapacitated, and moved towards Gylve, before knocking him to the ground alongside his friend. The way Mikael treated Gylve was different to the way he treated Margot. There was no mercy or consideration in the equation when the man was administering combat-boot-clad stomps to his body. He was out for blood, and did not hear the girl behind him stir.

Margot’s body ached as she pushed herself along the carpet, towards the wall where the crowbar lay clean and catching the light of the moon outside the window. She focused on it, trying to tune out the wails of her friend as he neared a possible death. She reached it, cool in her hand and smooth. The next task of standing proved to be a challenge as well but she somehow made the few steps to swing the metal bar over her own head, right into the back of Mikael’s. 

Two more hits and he was on the ground, and Margot was finally allowed to cry, big, heavy sobs that shook her whole body. She looked over Gylve, he was crumpled and half-in the closet. Bruises had already started to develop on him, and she had no idea how bad it would be underneath his shirt. 

She took a seat on the stained carpet, unable to look at either of the unconscious men to the left and right of her. The last thing she saw before fainting were the muddled, yet concerned faces staring at her slack-jawed from the doorway.

 

She awoke the next morning at 10:52am with a pounding headache. Looking around her she saw pastel yellow walls and a framed print of two teddybears hung up on one of them. She looked down and saw herself wrapped up in a quilt. The surroundings were unfamiliar but when Margot noticed the nurse’s buttons on the walls and the two large windows looking into a busy white hallway, she knew she was in a hospital room created to create a false sense of comfort.

A children’s hospital. What a kick in the face.

She slumped down, revelling in the comfort that the bed provided, and the warmth that the quilt gave off. She was struck by a sense of worry, when the thought crossed her mind that Gylve could be dead by now. Or he could be alive, but completely fucked up or paralysed forever, and it would be partially her fault for bringing him into the apartment.

Her thoughts wandered further into a fantasy of what could have been between them, and now what could never, ever happen. She did not let herself cry but fell into a dreamless sleep that lasted until she awoke from the noise that came from a creaking door.

Frida. Beautiful as ever, however perhaps less so under the fluorescent lights, and the look of fatigue on her face. She walked towards her younger friend sheepishly with her hands behind her back. “Margie?” she asked tentatively.

“Hey Frida.” She groaned in pain as she sat herself up and Frida rushed towards her.

“No don’t strain yourself!” 

“It’s fine, I’m okay, my head just hurts.” 

“Yeah I’d be surprised if it didn’t after what happened to you.” She took a seat on the plush green chair next to the bed. “I just came to talk to you before… you know… your parents came in.”

“Fuck!” Margot dug the heels of her hands into her eyes.

“Look I’m sorry Margie but I didn’t know who else to call.”

“Jon?” Margot said “Fucking anyone else at all?”

“Jon wouldn’t come through like that for you, you know that. People would ask questions about why you’re living with him.”

“I don’t give a fuck, I just don’t fucking care.” She said “This means I’m coming back to Bergen, right?” 

Frida didn’t answer, but her silence was telling enough that an answer wasn’t necessary.

“Well at least you’ll be there right?”

“No Margie, I’m-”

“What? So just because you’re done with Mikael that means you have to be done with me too?”

“Who said I was done with him? I just came back from visiting him Margot, he was in intensive care all fucking night! You could have killed him!”  
“He was trying to kill me! And he could have killed Gylve for all i know. How could you do this to me what the fuck is wrong with you?” Margot had gotten so angry she had started to cry, a habit of hers that she hated above all else because it made her feel silly for getting so worked up.

“Give it a rest. Gylve’s out of hospital, better off than you are now.”

“Why would Mikael come after me in the first place, what did I do to deserve this, huh?” She wiped away her tears with the backs of her hands and stared expectantly into Frida’s eyes.

“Because you asked me to come away, he thought you were a bad influence.”

“Oh I’m the bad influence,” Said Margot “I’m the one who cheats on my husband and drinks excessively, definitely not you.” 

Frida broke their eye contact to stare bitterly at the ground, “That’s not what I meant, you know how he is.”

“I know pretty fucking well how he is, and so does Gylve now. He paid the price for your past mistakes, and the mistakes you’re still making.”

“I’m not gonna sit here and be blamed for this.” Frida stood up and started to walk to the door, but turned back “I’m going to Oslo, I’m gonna live with Øystein in his flat.”

“Have fun!” Margot yelled at her as she slammed the door on her way out, “But don’t think you can ever talk to me again!”


	8. Fool in the Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Want me to kill her for you?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls review bbs

Chapter 8 Bergen 1991

“That comes to 50 krone, paper or plastic?” She directed her doe eyes to the lemon-sucked face of the elderly gentleman standing before her. He pointed a liver spotted finger to the rack of paper bags and she quickly picked up on the fact that this was not going to be the conversationalist-type customer. Fine by her, the less inane talking the better.  
The yellow and grey interior design of the Bunnpris grocery store in which Margot worked was inescapable apart from the window at the front of the building. She would stare out of it for hours if she could, not because of the view (It overlooked a carpark) but because of the stifling atmosphere of the building, that built feelings of anxiety in her until she could not look at the colours yellow or grey without a mild feeling of dread forming in the pit of her stomach. She was staring out of this window when she heard the scribbling of the pen used by the old man, who she had thought already left.

He was filling out her feedback card, which belonged to a pile of 70 other feedback cards that had been gathering dust for the past two years she’d been working there. His face told her that this feedback would not be good. The man made eye contact with her as he slipped the card into the small box next to the register and stalked out. 

Margot looked to either side of her, eyeing if her boss, Gerry was standing around somewhere. The building was devoid of both staff and customers. The girl swiftly took the feedback card out of the box, briefly reading something about disrespect and satanism, and ripped it into about six pieces before throwing it in the bin under the counter. 

Immediately after this the phone rang, sharp and shrill and knocking Margot out of her sleepy disposition. It was Gerry, asking her to come to the small office that the woman had dubbed a “conference room”.

The room had white walls, no windows, a sticky linoleum floor and the strong scent of cleaning products. Gerry was sitting behind a fold-out desk with her fat fingers folded in front of her. “Margot” she said as the girl walked cautiously towards her “take a seat please.”

She did, and she avoided eye contact with the large imposing woman as much as she could. “Margot, you would tell us if you were damaging store property right?”

“Of course I would Gerry.”

“So you have not been destroying things, am I correct?”

“That you are.”

“Margot I’m going to have to ask you to turn in your uniform and leave. We have you on camera vandalising a feedback card, which we both know is a vital component to customer satisfaction, and employee behaviour.” The old bitch had a small smile on her lips as she spoke, as if daring Margot to argue back. Margot just nodded, took off her work polo, leaving her undershirt in its place. She threw the shirt down on the table and without comment turned and walked out.

She couldn't go home, it barely was even a home since she returned there after a period of independence at age sixteen. It was a prison, a nice norwegian prison, but a prison nonetheless, where she had only recently (since her eighteenth birthday) been allowed to leave. The stranglehold her parents had on her had not left since she became an adult, but did loosen its grip slightly.

It began to rain, which made her whole journey even more miserable. She came to a small house with a well-kept garden and walked up the front steps to knock on the door. A blonde woman answered with a smile and a swift hug. The woman   
pulled back from the hug but kept a firm grip on Margot’s upper arms, studying her face.

“You don’t look so good chicky.” She said, Margot’s black dyed hair was longer than it used to be, going down a bit past her shoulders. It was tangled by the rain and her straight bangs were stuck to her forehead.k

“I’m fine Ms Bore, I just came to visit Varg if that’s ok?”

“Of course.” She said, but before she left her to go see varg she handed the girl a folded towel and a change of clothes. One of Varg’s shirts and a pair of knee-length denim shorts that looked like they belonged to nobody in the house.

Helene left Margot to wander up the carpeted stairs towards her friend’s room. The muffled music became clearer and clearer with each step, and the girl was still towel drying her damp hair when she pushed open the wooden door to see him perched over his desk, eyes boring holes into a thin slice of maths grid paper. His pen was gripped so tightly it looked like it would break, but the grip was loosened when he looked up to see her walk into his room and lie on his bed like it was her own. 

“Who are you writing to this time?” 

“A few people.” Varg gestured to the stack of papers next to him, all sealed in fat envelopes.

“Jon?”

“Of course, I was meant to tell you that your record collection is still safe and under his heavy guard- heavy definitely-”

Margot interrupted him to stand up and slap his arm “don’t make fun of his weight, he can't help it.”

Varg laughed as he spun his pen around his fingers, “He also asked how the job was going, i said you were unfortunately still allowed to sell fresh produce to the citizens of Bergen.”

“Not anymore…” She lay down again and stared at the ceiling.

“No way, you quit?”

“Got fired, it was a matter of time too, Gerry’s a fucking psycho”

“Want me to kill her for you?”

“That’s sweet but unnecessary, she’ll die of heart disease in a few years anyway.” She was still bitterly looking at the ceiling, memorising the bumps and cracks in the paint. Her vision was soon blocked by a sullen face and a layer of long hair. Varg looked at her in the eyes for a few seconds. “What?” The Girl asked, before she was answered by his lips firmly and immovably fastened to hers. She kissed back, and this went on for a few minutes until there was a knock at the door and the two looked up to see Helene standing at the door, holding a phone outstretched with a sombre look on her face. Varg stood and took the call in the hallway, leaving Margot alone sitting on the bed.

When he came back she was quickly ushered out of the house and back into the rain again, with nothing more than an apology and a kiss on the head. She left to roam the streets again.


End file.
